Thinking Anew:'I HEAR the wind a-blowing, and I hear the corn a-growing; I hear the Virgin praying, and I know what she is saying!" – Hester Sigerson.
Delusion is the abattoir of good society. Éamon de Valera was far from the first, or the last, person to discern the will of the Irish people by looking into his own heart. The stories of Dev and his all-powerful hierarchy are recounted with embarrassment, amusement, pride or anger depending on the seanchaí. Stripped of emotion they are the accounts of powerful men who imposed their particular view and morality on society at large. Their influence didn’t last forever.
In many ways we like to think of ourselves as having moved on and maybe matured as a society. In reality we have simply replaced one authoritarian system with another. The days of the parish priest banning a dance in the local hall on moral grounds have changed into a situation where any public event can be forbidden by the civic authorities on the grounds of health and safety. For some strange reason the highly dangerous act of crossing the street at an undesignated crossing has not yet been criminalised; but surely it will be soon. We find that events run by local communities will be banned if any possible accident can be identified.
Certainly there is a value to public safety, but the balance with community good is dogmatically overlooked.
Moral choices and personal freedom are deep-rooted skills of the Christian tradition and consequently in societies that evolved out of the Christian tradition. The Gospels abound with stories that encourage good disposition of heart above uncontemplated compliance with law. Law, in Christian jurisprudence, has an educative role and introduces a clear principle to any situation. Even a law that is a specific rule or ban has a role to encourage good disposition of heart. Despite constant negativity most people are good and enjoying being good. All people want to live in a peaceful, happy society. Most of us would add “well-regulated” to that.
Sometimes we believe that we can legislate a good society. We can’t. Though, often convinced that we know a better way, we campaign and badger for ever-more particular rules to enforce a safe, healthy society. In Christ’s times the Pharisaic class had drowned the law in a complexity of regulations that they believed would create their ideal society (which was also peaceful and happy). Christ encouraged us to go beyond that attitude. In later years the disciples of Christ devised their own series of intricate laws that swamped their own message of hope under an impossible burden of specific legislation. Yet history has shown us time and time again that over-regulated movements and societies become the most corrupt in the end.
Myriad rules and legal technicalities make a mockery of the substance of law. That was Christ’s message to the zealots of his day. Love of God and of your neighbour was his simple command. Religious society has always battled with the personal revelations that people claim. Sifting through that strange borderland between delusion and sincerity we encounter strongly held opinions that appeal to personal insight for justification. It is frightening how much recent legislation appeals to these personal insights for its raison d’être.
In any age of religious practice in decline these personal revelations abound. But we are not alone. Economics, politics and even journalism abound with their own visionaries and self-styled prophets. The antidote lies in the wisdom and strength of a wider community. Most of us can see the self-interests behind new laws. But, good society (not precepts) is the bedrock of good governance. Communion, not contract, is the bedrock of good society. Encouragement, not condemnation, is the bedrock of communion. Encouragement, not dogma, builds safe, healthy society.
– FMacE